Why Twitter Matters?

The ability to indulge in open communication is becoming one of the most crucial factors for the C-suite executives; and an imperative for the CIOs

It is not every day that you get to see the same story on the cover of CIO&Leader and ITNEXT. With no dearth of tech stories around, why did we choose to put Twitter CIOs on cover?

Because I am getting more and more convinced that the ability to indulge in open communica­tion is becoming one of the most crucial factors for the C-suite executives; and an imperative for the CIOs who are supposed to lead others by example, when it comes to technology usage.

And nothing today provides a better platform to indulge in open communication than Twitter. However, there are very few Indian CIOs on Twitter. This is our way of encouraging more to come on the platform.

Here are five things Twitter can help you do:

1. It can help you keep pace with what is happening around that will broaden your outlook. If you are a top auto­motive CIO, you need to know what is happening around this segment the world over. If you are CIO of a big conglomerate, major policy decisions and point of view around that is something that will help you immensely.

2. It can help you share your opin­ion, best practices, thoughts with the world. Sorry, unlike Facebook, Twit­ter is not a dumb platform for sharing your picture receiving an award from an organization no one knows. But if you articulate a specific business chal­lenge in an emerging technology implementation and how you solved it in a blog, no platform is bet­ter than Twitter to share it. You do not even have to write a blog. You can just share in a series of tweets.

3. It can help you find use cases for new technolo­gies which the top management these days badly expects. Follow handles around blockchain and you will know what is happening globally around block­chain, updated almost every minute.

4. Twitter is a platform to indulge. Start a discussion, maybe with your peers, and if it is a trending topic, like a new technology, or a data breach, or a new policy decision, you will find many with new viewpoints and facts joining you. You can never get that on Facebook or LinkedIn.

5. Twitter is also the most effective medium—I guess the only such medium—for advocacy. Both government departments and businesses/brands are the most responsive when you raise it on Twit­ter. Similarly, it can draw like-minded people to join your campaign.

But the use cases of Twitter are restricted by your imagination. As the outside-in regime kicks in, you cannot shy away from looking around and engaging with the community in general. An open platform is a great tool to start with.